After 42 years, the owners of iconic Rosie’s Bakery, Judy Rosenberg and Eliot Winograd, were looking for the right person to entrust with their legacy of top notch baked goods that evoke the pleasure of home made. Both now grandparents, they wanted to spend more time with their families, and Rosenberg was eager to return to her art which had been a springboard to Rosie’s creations.

The original Rosie’s opened in Cambridge in 1974, when there was a paucity of bakery/cafes. The store arose from Rosenberg’s passion for baking using fine ingredients, and tweaking the balance of flavor and texture so that each cookie, each pie or cake was the best it could be. After so many years of love and dedication, Rosenberg and Winograd would not pass Rosie’s to just anyone.

Enter Galina Laffer.

At the age of 19, Laffer emigrated from Ukraine, leaving her family and toting only a bag of clothing and the spoon and cup that corresponded to her grandmother’s recipes. She had no inkling of owning a bakery, but graduated Summa cum laude from UMass Boston without even realizing the extent of her achievement.